


This Sleep Of Death

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Dreams, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mysteries, Obsession, Religious Themes, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:13:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: Everyone keeps telling him that he looks tired, that he should get some sleep. But getting to sleep is not the problem.





	1. Chapter 1

It starts after Rook almost drowns. He remembers the car going off the side of the bridge, he remembers stroking for the surface, lungs burning, and then perhaps the shore in the distance, or maybe just the hope of it.

He remembers...being somewhere else.

Standing in the shadow of the church, where all of this started, where he first met Joseph Seed, first made himself an enemy of Eden's Gate. Only the sun is high this time, throwing shafts of light where Joseph is standing, where he was the first time Rook saw him in the flesh. Though he's alone this time, no Heralds and no followers, no one to lead, no one to stir into violence. Sunlight curves through the windows too, leaving the building half bright and half in shadow. But as Rook walks forward, closes the distance between them, he realises it's not as simple as that. In the light the wood is smooth and polished, but in the darkness it's blackened and charred, pieces breaking, crumbling to ash.

There are shapes against the brittle mess of it, smears against the darkness, as if people were sitting on the pews when they were burned.

Joseph doesn't look at Rook until he's within touching distance, the wood of the steps a mix of brown and ashy-black under his bare feet. Joseph has made clearer, smudged footprints that lead towards him. Rook gets the feeling he's been waiting for him, that he couldn't begin without him. Though Rook's not sure what he even means by that.

"Do you truly know what you have wandered into?" Joseph's expression is unreadable, though his voice is strong. There's no congregation this time. No audience to shout to. Not that that seems to make a difference. The weight of his voice is still there, the intensity of his focus solely on Rook this time. "Are you prepared?"

"Prepared for what?" Rook asks him. There's a breeze through the open door, blowing past him, and it smells like smoke.

"A man can be shown the way. But he must still choose whether to follow the path," Joseph adds. 

"You're just a dream," Rook counters, realising it all at once with a strangely muffled surprise. All of this is a dream, with no beginning and no ending, just the middle. "You're not going to tell me anything I don't already know."

Joseph reaches out, catches his shoulders and pulls him forward, presses their foreheads together. Rook can feel the edge of his glasses, cool against the skin. His grip is inescapable, skin hot like he's been standing in the sun.

"Are you prepared to do what must be done?" Joseph asks again. "For what happens next. Because your choice will change everything."

Rook doesn't know what he means.

Joseph's hands slide down his face, draw his head up, tilt it into the light, and Rook shuts his eyes against it.

The next thing he knows he's blinking at Dutch, in the dim light of a steel bunker, head aching like someone had tried to cave it in, and the whole world seems to have gone to hell.

His fellow deputies and Burke have all been taken by the cult. Rook's the last one standing, and everyone seems to think he can fix that somehow, that he can fix everything somehow. He doesn't know how that happened, why they think he's capable of something an entire town of mostly armed people haven't been able to accomplish. But he does his best, one house, one farm, one outpost at a time. One disaster at a time.

Rook's life becomes more hectic than he can possibly imagine. He liberates the town, and then the church. He manages not to die a dozen times, though he has no clear idea how, when the whole world seems primed to explode everywhere he goes. He makes friends, allies, some strange mixture of the two, people like Grace Armstrong and Nick Rye, smart people, strong people. Also Boomer, not-a-person but Rook's tempted to give him honorary person status anyway. Since he's probably the smartest dog he's ever met. Smarter than some people he's met, if he's being brutally honest.

Of course, Rook's also making more enemies than he ever imagined a man could have. Some days he feels like the only thing keeping him alive is forward momentum, so he just keeps moving and moving, pulling people into his orbit more by accident than by design.

And in those rare moments when the world seems calm enough, still enough, safe enough.

He sleeps.

...

Rook's dream dumps him in the middle of nowhere. He doesn't think it's a real place, but part of it feels familiar, so maybe it's a place stitched together from bits and pieces of his memory. He knows he's dreaming straight away, something about the way the world feels, it's too clean, too perfect, like a presentation laid out just for him. 

Or maybe not just for him.

Joseph is crouched by the edge of a slow-moving river, barefoot, bare-chested. He doesn't react when Rook approaches.

"You should find some boots, you're going to get bitten by something," Rook tells him absently. Because the man is far less imposing when he's not actually real, and he can't seem to stay out of Rook's dreams.

Joseph turns enough to look at him, letting the water flow over his feet.

"Have you found your way, Deputy?" he asks. He gives the question weight, seems to be hoping Rook will have some answer for him. Which doesn't seem fair, since Joseph never has any answers for him, none that make sense anyway. "Have you found the path that God has chosen for you?"

Rook watches the sun paint the river with moving wedges of light.

"I wouldn't call it a way, exactly," he admits. It's more of a protest against Joseph's way. A boot into all his careful plans and preparations. "But I'm trying my best to stop you, to stop what you're doing - I'm not really an expert, but I feel like the road to God probably shouldn't involve pain, fear and mutilation. I mean, sure, you'll probably get his attention that way, but not the sort you were hoping for."

Joseph sighs, as if his answer was exactly what he expected, but he's still disappointed. But instead of telling him why, of even trying to explain what he means for once, he stands, turns on the stones and lifts a hand towards him, an offering, that he expects Rook to take. 

It's his book, because of course it is.

Rook can't help reaching for it, fingers against the off-white cover, Joseph's own hand sliding away slowly. It's heavier than he's expecting, cover soft from the constant slide and push of fingers, Joseph's fingers, Rook assumes.

"Read it," Joseph says simply, as if Rook will find the answers to all his questions inside. Which he supposes is at least a possibility. Dreams don't always make sense like the real world after all.

Rook flips it open, because why the hell not? And it opens easily, pages spilling, as if it's been read through a thousand times. But there's nothing inside, no answers, not even any more questions. There's nothing but blank pages, no matter how far ahead he flips, there's just empty white paper. Which makes sense really. Rook has never seen inside the book, dreams can't tell you anything you don't already know. Rook didn't expect to find answers in here, so he guesses his head didn't provide any.

Joseph looks expectant, and there's a weight to it. But Rook's going to have to disappoint him.

"I was never very good at metaphors," he admits. 

Joseph draws him in, doesn't stop until they're breathing against each other, and then Rook can't breathe at all, mouth caught half open. Joseph's hands are gentle, but the kiss is angry, one push after another, a drag of beard and teeth that's unfamiliar and unsettling. Rook should stop him. But dreams rarely let you do what you want. They just take the mess in your head and make a madness of it. So instead he lets it continue, until it wears Joseph's anger down to something slower and easier, something forgiving.

When Joseph draws back Rook finds that he's lifted his own hands and curled them around Joseph's wrists, as if he wanted to push him away, or hold him in place. He lets them fall.

Joseph gently takes the book back from him, holds it against his chest like Rook has left his own answers inside.

"Everything is going to burn," Joseph tells him.

"How can you believe that?" Rook asks.

"I have seen it," Joseph says simply. "So many times. God has shown me the end. He has shown me what I need to do. All I had to do was listen. All you have to do is _listen_."

Joseph clearly wants Rook to understand. But he refuses not to talk in riddles and prophecies. Because then maybe his whole crazy house of cards would fall apart. Still Rook is here and maybe his head is trying to tell him something. There's a persistence here that he can't shake off, that he can't stop.

"What am I supposed to listen for? A voice in my head?" Because Rook's not sure he'd listen to that even if he did hear it. No, he knows he wouldn't listen to that, because it's insane. That's how all of this started. When a man followed his own demons, rather than asking for help.

"Dreams can't tell you things you don't already know," Joseph says, like that's supposed to make sense. But Rook doesn't know what he means. 

The dream doesn't seem to care.

 

~

 

Rook's bandaging the stinging bite an unexpected wolverine gave him, when Grace seats herself next to him. At first it's just quiet companionship, until Rook realises there's also a weight there, an expectation. As if she's asking a question she doesn't want to ask. Rook's been trying to keep most of the madness inside his own head, but he obviously hasn't been doing that good of a job. Either that or Grace is just more observant than anyone else. 

"Bad dreams," he says simply. Though the truth is messier than that. It's the simplest answer for right now. It's an answer that doesn't need explanation, that doesn't require him to expose a madness, or an obsession, that he's not sure what to do with.

Most of the judgement seems to ease away from her expression though. Rook thinks Grace is a woman who's had her fair share of stuff to work through in the night. She's not going to push, and Rook's more than grateful for that. He likes Grace, she's solid and dependable and brutally honest, and willing to follow him into some of the most insane shit he'd never have believed six months ago. Of course she's not the only one willing to stand at his back for all this, and Rook's grateful for that. For all that he's proven himself unexpectedly capable of lately, for all that's he's proven what he can do when pushed, he's still just one man.

"So, we're supposed to steal a plane right out from under John Seed's nose," he says, and Grace doesn't care at all about the obvious change of subject.

"I can't say I'm not curious to know how this is going to go down," she admits. Though in this case Rook suspects it won't be the fun sort of curious. She trusts him enough to go with him though, to let him plan it out and get it done. It's more than anyone has ever trusted Rook in his life, and he still doesn't think he's earned it. He still thinks he's probably going to do something to mess it up, to disappoint people.

"Can you fly a plane?" he asks her. Because Rook has seen a lot of planes and helicopters be flown by other people, but that's the extent of his experience. If that even counts as experience, he's effectively just a bystander to the flying.

Grace shakes her head

"I've jumped out of a few," she mutters. "Which I realise is unhelpful."

Rook is hoping that won't be necessary. He'd quite like to get Nick's plane back to him in one piece.

It turns out to be perhaps the first thing that goes completely to plan. It's hectic, exhausting and he comes perilously close to being shot out of the sky. But Rook flies a plane, he even lands a plane, and that's maybe the best thing that's happened to him, since he woke up upside down with all his colleagues kidnapped and his surroundings on fire.

The world seems to take pity on him for a while after that.

If he dreams, he doesn't remember them.

 

~

 

Six days later he's out in the woods, staring up at a mess of stars, faint wisps of cloud smearing through them, the wind is just a faint, lazy tug of cool air, that smells like damp undergrowth. It's quiet enough that Rook can hear nothing but the faint movement of grass, the creak of a branch from somewhere much lower down the slope. It feels like the whole world has slowed down.

And then it's all gone, and he finds himself blinking at a pale ceiling. He's in a strange room, on a strange bed. There's a warm breeze coming through the open window now, it smells like smoke and grilled meat. He could turn his head to look, to see what waits for him out there, but there are more important things demanding his attention right now.

Joseph is folded over at the end of the bed, the long, angular shape of him knelt between Rook's legs, there's a knife, Rook can feel it pressing at the bend above his hip, just above the waist of his pants, slow lines of icy discomfort. Because dreams never can work out how to make you hurt like your skin is real.

"What are you doing?" Rook asks. He should be angry, he should be furious. He should get up, he should stop him, reach down, take the knife from Joseph - use it on him. He can hear the whirr of a fan somewhere, a bird far away. But the world feels strangely still, as if it's waiting for something, as if it's waiting for Rook.

"A reminder," Joseph says quietly. Though he doesn't look at him, doesn't look away from what he's doing, from the way he's cutting into him, like he has the right.

A word, Rook thinks, carefully carved into his skin by Joseph's hand, like he deserves it, like he's one of them.

"I'm not one of your children. My sins are my own business." Rook already knows how to atone for his mistakes. They don't belong to Joseph.

"You'll know it," Joseph promises, as if he hears the question Rook didn't ask. "You will see it eventually."

Joseph's thumb follows every carved line, every long sweep of the knife. The pain that Rook keeps expecting doesn't come, because pain is part of the real world.

"A sin, once you are forgiven is a freedom. But you, you press on it, keep pressing on it, like a bruise that vexes you." Joseph's hand slips to the side, finds an old curl of purple-blue on Rook's waist and makes his point with pressure. Joseph proves him wrong, part of a dream allowed to hurt him somehow. Because that pressure sends the ache deeper, makes Rook want to pull away. 

Dreams weren't supposed to hurt you. 

But Rook thinks Joseph treats people the same way, he finds out where they hurt, where they're vulnerable, and he presses on them, until they do what he wants. Until they need him, and they can't walk away.

Joseph tips his head to look at him, eyes sharp behind his glasses, as if he'd heard the thought. He presses down harder, turns the ache into a dull grate of pain. 

"I'm not a believer in pretending the choices we make don't matter," Rook hisses. He tries to shift away, but it's barely a breath of movement, a twitch. The pressure stops suddenly, and now there's just a thumb, stroking slowly at the memory of pain. Curving where the bone lays under the skin, over and over. It's not an apology, it's something else entirely. 

"The choices we make." Joseph sounds disappointed. "The choices we make are all that matter."

Rook can feel Joseph's fingers slide under the soft edge of his jeans, thumb tugging the button through. He can feel the drag of warm knuckles on the low plane of his stomach.

"If there were no choices, if we were not free to choose, to make mistakes, to indulge in sin, to love unwisely - "

His jeans are eased down, Joseph's shoulders wide between his knees, fingers intent on exposing him. He slips his glasses free and lays them aside, which makes Rook take a breath, sheets tangled in his fist without him even realising he'd moved.

"I don't - " Rook stops. 

Joseph's mouth is on him, an unexpected shock of liquid warmth. Before it becomes sharper, more aggressive, long slides that leave his thighs spreading helplessly.

It's not forgiveness.

Rook's hand finds on the hot curve of Joseph's shoulder, fingers curling on the skin, digging in.

"I don't -"

...

Rook wakes up sprawled on the ground, sun making its way past the mountains, every inhale hurts. He coughs out dirt, then groans when it shakes all the way through him, vibrates every place inside him that feels tender and bruised.

Fuck," he breathes, feels the soreness of his tongue, and the loose edges of his teeth. He should be grateful he's still alive, but he's too busy being shaken and confused. Too busy trying to work out why his head no longer feels like it belongs to him alone.

Rook slowly drags himself back to town, skirting the roads while he tries to rearm himself from dead peggies, crashed vehicles and abandoned backpacks. Until he eventually finds the familiar shape of the bar.

Mary May frowns at him as if he looks even worse than he feels.

"Rough night?" she asks gently.

Rook carefully eases himself on to a stool, and it feels like all his bones are still trying to work out where they belong. How long has it been since yesterday? How long has he been out in the woods, trying to pull the county back together, slamming himself against Eden's Gate over and over, to make some sort of progress. Keeping that progress is not something he can do on his own. But sometimes he's the only one there, and sometimes progress is taken from them. Forcing Rook to liberate the same outpost twice, or more than twice. He has no idea where Eden's Gate got all its manpower. How did Joseph get all these people to listen?

"I have a recollection of being blown up, not much after that," he admits. It's all he's willing to admit to, fuck whatever else is going on in his brain. He's choosing to focus on the things he can fix right now. The things which affect him in the real world.

She winces and looks him over

"You need patching up?" she asks quietly. Which tells him how bad he looks.

Rook considers it. "I don't think so, everything still feels like it's attached, mostly."

She shakes her head and slides a beer across the counter. He can feel the chill air floating off of it, condensation thick on the length of the bottle.

Rook raises an eyebrow.

"What is it, six in the morning?" he asks, though he's already pulling it closer, his mouth is sore and dry, and he doesn't have it in him to refuse.

She shrugs.

"World's falling apart, I figure we can bend a few rules."

Rook drinks his beer, then heads into the back, washes his face, shakes dirt and leaves out of his hair. Without really thinking about it he tugs his shirt up, checks his waist and finds nothing but flat, unbroken skin. He doesn't know what else he expected. He feels like he's going mad.

The world seems intent on giving Rook more distractions than he could possibly need, so many that he's not sure if it's honestly a help or not. He has no idea how Eden's Gate managed to build so much shit so quickly. Everywhere he goes, he sees their flags, flung around like death shrouds, because God knows they're always surrounded by bodies, by blood and destruction. Not to mention all the damn trucks, hundreds of them. He's crashed what feels like half a dozen himself - the music they're always playing is not exactly soothing. In fact it seems purposefully designed to make you want to commit murder, or crash into things, if you have to endure it on a loop while cultists throw dynamite at you.

He should maybe look into that at some point. It wouldn't be the worst or the weirdest thing Eden's Gate has been caught doing.

Rook's just tired, honestly. Since his life became a stream of constant, desperate radio calls, sending him from one side of the county to the other, clawing back pieces of normality for these people. There's always someone, something that needs to be done and sometimes it doesn't feel like there's any time to breathe.

"You look exhausted," Nick says, from where he's been throwing a ball for Boomer for what feels like forever. Rook would tell him that the dog will never get tired, that he'll literally let Nick do that all day. But he doesn't have the heart to spoil his fun. "You should get some sleep."

Rook sighs and rubs his hands over his face.

"Getting to sleep is not the problem," he says. He doesn't really want to share any more than that.

 

~

 

Rook remembers a stretch of mountain, the end of a trail after leaving an outpost in the hands of those more deserving, the late sun cutting through the trees in a way that makes the ground look like it's melting gold. He wants to stay there, to watch the sun set, to listen to the world slide from day to night.

But there's someone on the radio, there always is, someone begging, people taken by Eden's Gate, property vandalized, shrines thrown up, family members needing to be rescued. So Rook packs up his stuff and he follows the voice. That's what he does after all, he follows the voices. He goes where they tell him to. He does what they tell him to. He makes things right.

Afterwards he liberates a helicopter and then lands it somewhere that feels like the top of the world, a long drop on either side, mountains forever, nothing but birds for company. It seems like a safe place to sleep, because Rook's still so damn tired.

...

Rook's the one holding a knife this time, the one eyeing the long stretch of Joseph's body. Lines of art and violence and the mess of humanity between. His hand is already settled on Joseph's stomach, the word there cut apart by his fingers, so it makes no sense. It's strange, Rook's been something of a passive participant in most of his dreams, not an instigator. He's let himself be led, though that phrase unsettles him, because things are usually only led to slaughter. He's not sure what it means to be the one who chooses what happens next.

"If I thought you were actually doing this, I'd ask you to stop," he says. He frowns down at the knife, no less sharp here for being a thing that isn't real.

Joseph's foot presses against Rook's elbow, making the knife turn in his hand. It's pointed and demanding. Rook sees the wavering reflection of his own face. The edges of Joseph's body.

"You don't think there's enough madness on your skin already," Rook asks, trying to stop, trying to stall, because he knows what Joseph wants him to do. He knows what Joseph is expecting from him. But his expression is not the tense anticipation of violence, it's soft, expectant, as if this is somehow an intimacy Joseph wants to share with him.

"We need to be reminded," Joseph answers firmly. "What we are trying to do, the path we are on, the sacrifices we must make to be _worthy_. To show that we are willing to do what must be done." Joseph reaches up, spreads his hand on Rook's chest, before drawing it down, curving fingers into his belt and pulling in gently, as if the opportunity to dig lines into his skin is some sort of gift. Something Joseph has chosen him for.

Rook stops him, leans back against the hold.

"I'm not going to carve words into you," he says, voice airy thin in the quiet. 

Though part of him can already imagine it, can feel the way Joseph's skin will split beneath the draw of metal, jumping on every heartbeat and shuddering on every breath. Rook can already imagine the way he'll bleed, in spots and fine lines. Rook doesn't know whether he'll bear it quietly, or whether he'll breathe pain like he deserves it. Or whether there's some strange third option that he can't quite wrap his head around. A tiny part of Rook wants to do it, but it's nothing to do with atonement, or absolution. It's not even about revenge. It's more curious, tentative and newly formed, something that he's not entirely comfortable bringing out into the light. Rook doesn't like anything it says about him, even in a dream.

Why me? He wants to ask. But the question doesn't come, as if it's not important, or it's not something he's allowed to say.

"I won't do it," he manages. "You'll have to find someone else to punish you."

Joseph's hand settles over Rook's, thumb sliding over his knuckles, before taking the knife and releasing him. Rook's not sure whether he's passed or failed, or whether this was even a test. The hazy nonsense of dreams.

"Isn't that what you're doing to yourself?" The question is low and gentle. "Punishing yourself, over and over. When asking for forgiveness would be so much easier."

"Your forgiveness isn't even close to free," Rook tells him. "You make people suffer for it, you make them bleed for it."

"I have forgiven you," Joseph says simply, as if that helps.

"Have you?" Rook asks. Because it feels like he's still running, still fighting, that the county is still trying to stick a knife in him and bring him down.

Joseph sighs, as if Rook still refuses to understand something simple.

"All you have to do is hold a hand out and accept it." 

Joseph curls a hand round the back of his neck and draws him down, takes his weight, until Rook's breathing into his mouth, and Joseph is kissing him without his permission. But Rook doesn't push at him, doesn't make him stop, doesn't even know if he wants to. Instead he lays his hand against the curling letters of 'Eden,' feels the heat of Joseph, the slow, steady beat of his heart. And that's so much easier to understand than knives on skin, than religion, and atonement, and violence.

He wonders if the dream wants this, if he wants this? Joseph's fingers drag through his hair, curl closed and then open in slow rhythmic stretches. It's lazy, and curious, as if Joseph is still somehow fascinated by how easily Rook lets him touch. Rook's hand slides down to Joseph's stomach, which moves on every breath. The heel of his hand hits the folded leather of his belt, the hard buckle.

It would be easy, it wouldn't have to mean anything. If Rook gives in, if he takes what Joseph is offering, a moment to forget the madness of Hope County for a little while. 

It's just a dream after all.

 

~

 

It's a mistake to cross too far into the Henbane.

The Bliss is the promise of nothing but oblivion. There are no truths in that smothering, deadly fucking weed. The madness of it is like a dream, but it's a glossed-over one, a floaty and unsettled moment of contentment, and you don't notice the part of your brain that's screaming until you drag yourself out of it.

Faith is there, as she always is, tugging at Rook's hands like they're the oldest of friends, and it feels safe to let her lead him. He follows after her, at her slow but adventurous pace, trusting her smile and her voice and her gentle coaxing. Because the Bliss makes you believe, it makes you want to follow, to trust where you shouldn't. She skips and twirls, and there's a freedom to it, carved out of the memories of childhood, where almost everyone felt indestructible and responsibilities couldn't hurt you. Like the world and its madness, its demands, its disappointments, couldn't touch you. 

But it's all a lie.

"Talk to me," Faith says, all enthusiasm and friendliness. Though she'll shimmer in and out, smiling like she has a secret. More like a fairy than an angel. "Tell me _everything_."

Rook knows there are things she isn't supposed to know. He knows there are things he's not supposed to share. They aren't his secrets, a man can't share other people's secrets.

"Tell me some of yours then?" She says, still smiling, like she just wants to listen. 

Rook comes to his senses on the bank of the river, head unsteady and sick, vision a mess of sparkles and haze. The water doesn't help, the fresh air doesn't help, everything is contaminated here. 

Everything.

Maybe him as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes Rook doesn't know he's dreaming, staring lost into the wide expanse of nature, trying desperately to find a familiar curve of mountain or stretch of forest. It's almost like someone snatched him from the waking world and dropped him here. There's something he's forgotten, something he's supposed to do. Something that isn't quite right.

The sky is smeared-out and orange. It looks like it's on fire.

He doesn't know he's dreaming until Joseph touches him, leans into him from behind, bare skin against bare skin. Rook can feel the roughness of old violence where they press together. But he relaxes into him, as if the pieces of the dream that were missing have slotted into place. He'll hate himself for it later, when he's in the real world.

"I shouldn't be here," Rook tells him. He doesn't just mean now, or he doesn't think he does. It's confused in his head, he's been holding it in for too long, or hasn't said it enough. Had he forgotten to protest, somewhere along the way? While this mess happened around him. It's like he's having someone else's dream. Or a dream for another version of him. None of this is right. He just wishes he felt more certain about that.

"Where should you be then?" Joseph asks. "Where does your purpose take you? Circles and circles of destruction, leading you nowhere."

It's leading me to you, Rook realises, an absent, confused, but easy thought to follow. Something traitorous inside his own head. But he says nothing, Joseph is a hard man to win a conversation again. The easiest thing to do is to just let him wash over you. But that feels - that always feels so dangerous, to let Joseph in

"God has shown you where you need to be. But you lack trust, you lack _faith_ ," Joseph says, like it's a failing he can remedy if Rook just gives him the chance.

"And you have too much of it," Rook counters, easily.

Joseph tenses against him, offended and unhappy. Rook thinks he's hit a nerve.

"You, all of this, it's not right, none of this is right. None of this makes sense," Rook tells him. "And maybe I'm just waiting for you to tell me what it's all about. Or to take that knife that keeps showing up, and put it six inches into my eye."

"I've already sent an army for you," Joseph says with a sigh. There are fingers sliding into Rook's hair, drawing upwards from the base of his skull, warm against his scalp. As if neither of them can quite resist touching the other. Rook would feel better about that if he wasn't the only one of them that was real. If he wasn't the only one wondering why this is something he's allowing to happen. "What more could I possibly do?" 

"You could stop. You could just stop taking everything apart, and leave everyone alone," Rook says, though he doesn't stop him touching, doesn't pull away when Joseph's fingers curl shut. But he wishes Joseph would just let him rest, let him work out what the hell is going on inside his own head.

"How can I leave you alone, when you are so resistant, so wilful. When you have proven yourself so necessary. How can I leave you alone, when you are _always_ here."

There's a weight against the back of Rook's head, the roll of Joseph's skull.

"Or are you waiting for my hands around your throat?" Joseph says simply, whisper-soft. "Is that what you want?"

Rook isn't sure what he wants any more. It's more what he expects. What the world has given him so far. It only ever gets confused when he's dreaming. When he's dreaming all choices seem possible. Even the madness seems like company.

"I'd understand that at least," he says. It wouldn't be the first hand at his throat, wouldn't be the first choking fight for life Rook has had to deal with, that he's managed to live through.

"Would you?" Joseph seems to think not. His hand slides upwards, curls around the warm curve of Rook's neck, fingers hard and tight. He uses the grip to pull him round, to force a kiss. Though the second is far less forced, and the third is slow and easy. The fourth leaves Rook breathless, and then he loses count.

Joseph pulls, gently but irresistibly. His gaze is far too knowing, far too invasive. They ease downwards, and the ground is now white, green and gold like the Bliss. Though the sky is still orange and red, it still looks like it's on fire.

Rook ends up braced over the stretch of Joseph's skin. He's too tired to be anything other than honest. There's something here that he wants, something here that catches and tugs a place inside him he'd thought was untouchable. He doesn't get to have anything like this when he's awake.

"I'm not -"

"What are you not?" Joseph asks, watching him carefully.

But there's no answer, no real one, none that won't make this messy, admit to too much. Rook's hands are already unbuttoning and unzipping Joseph's jeans, easing them down his thighs. Everything is too easy, happening too fast, sliding towards something Rook knows will be the fucking death of him. But he tells himself it's a dream, it's a dream so it's all just sensation in the end. It's a dream and none of it matters.

Rook slides out of his own jeans, presses down, tangles them together in a way that's messy and intimate and dangerous.

"It was always supposed to be you," Joseph breathes against his mouth, when the dream is already all shards of pleasure and glass -

Rook jerks awake to find John Seed waiting for him, to the twisting, grating weight of rope around his wrists, a chair in a room underground with not enough light. 

He forces himself to listen to the words, to concentrate, to be part of the waking world, when his body is still expecting the dig of fingers and the slide of warm skin. He's too close to the edge for any of this to be fair. 

 

~

 

Rook's starting to think there's something wrong with him, that Hope County has broken something inside him, in a way he can't quite fix, no matter how many hours he stays awake. No matter how much he tries to shake it off. It's not like he's never had sex dreams before. But there's a time and a place, and the subject matter is so far past fucked up he doesn't even have words to explain it. He doesn't know how to make it stop.

"I think I may be going crazy," Rook admits, and it's the first time he's said it out loud. The first time he's admitted this to anyone.

Though the fact that he says it to Hurk probably says something about how much he doesn't want to. Because he feels like Hurk is the least likely to worry or care. The least likely to judge him on choices that aren't even his own. Rook thinks that's something of a self defence mechanism.

"Man, join the club," Hurk complains, with feeling. He'd found some hot dogs and some buns and insisted on bringing them back to camp so they didn't go to waste. Rook's pretty sure he's already fed Boomer two of them. "This town is going in totally the opposite direction to paradise, and it's going there super fast, and without breaks. Also, it seems like only crazy people are allowed. I'm starting to think it's something in the water."

Only in Hope County could there actually be insanity in the water. Though they've already done their best to fix that, destroyed the tanks of Bliss that were pumping themselves aggressively into the drinking water - and Rook isn't sure how Joseph's vision of paradise and that poisonous, hallucinogenic nightmare of a drug ever got mixed up in the first place. They seem counter-productive. Maybe it's all just more punishment for non-believers and sinners, which seems to be the main theme there.

"No, I mean actually insane," Rook tells him. "I'm dreaming crazy things."

Hurk stops adding toppings to his hot dog.

"Like, crazy prophetic dreams, talking wolverines, people's heads floating around after you and telling you to do stuff, that kind of thing?" 

Rook thinks about it for a second, decides that's probably something he doesn't want to poke at. 

"No, no talking wolverines, or...heads, mostly just uncomfortable sex dreams." Almost entirely uncomfortable sex dreams.

"Aw, me too, I mean she only turned into a bear for a minute, or like five tops, but it was still weird, you know. I figure your brain is going through its own shit at night, while you're trying to deal with the real world normal daytime stuff, and you should just let it get it out of its system, and not make a big deal out of it."

Rook considers that for a minute. He is making a big deal about what are effectively just dreams. Constant or not, they're not actually real, they can't hurt him.

Hurk nods at him.

"And there's crazy people everywhere, and crazy flowers, and you know, that's a lot to deal with when you're awake, and also occasionally inappropriately thinking about sex. You should maybe not be so hard on yourself. But if you ever want to talk about stuff, y'know, even weird stuff. I'm here for you. You just give me a call."

"Thanks, Hurk," Rook says, and he actually means it, he really does.

 

~

 

Rook's dream puts him in the middle of the river, waist deep in the flowing water. He thinks it's supposed to be cold, but that seems to be more something he knows than something he feels. It pulls at his legs, a gentle but insistent tugging that feels rhythmic, hypnotic almost. 

Joseph is standing deeper in, hands held against the flow. He looks oddly serene, head tipped back slightly, eyes shut behind his glasses. His fingers spread, water streaming between them.

"I was waiting for you," Joseph says, he seems pleased, a warmth to his voice which Rook hasn't heard before. It makes Rook think about who Joseph might have been, if he'd never come here, never listened to God, never cracked down the middle. Whether he would have been more...or less.

"How does that work?" Rook wonders. What exactly does a figment do when you're not around to touch them, to listen to them ramble prophecies at you.

Joseph turns to him, smiles when he sees him.

"I was thinking about you, and you came."

"Very sinful of you," Rook points out, insinuating more than Joseph had admitted to. 

But Joseph doesn't protest Rook's suggestion, or refute it. Instead he breathes a sound that might be agreement and drags his hands through the water.

"This is where it began," he says simply. "Where the path forked, the last choice, and I made it gladly."

"What happens now?" Rook asks.

Joseph lifts his hands, water trailing from them, and reaches out to him, and his smile is as close to genuine as Rook has ever seen.

"Take my hands, trust me and let me show you, let me wash you clean. You'll be one of us, and then you'll see."

Rook doesn't move to join him, doesn't reach out. Because this feels more like something Joseph would want, something he's brought with him.

"Yeah, I'm going to decline the surprise baptism, thanks anyway."

Joseph frowns, rejection obvious, but he lowers his arms, hands resting in the water.

Rook leaves him to his mission, heads to the calm quiet of the bank, where the water just slaps gently, washing sticks and leaves against the dirt. He goes high enough to hit grass and sits down. It's soft underneath him, warm from the sun. The dream doesn't seem care that Rook is still half wet, so he won't either. 

He watches Joseph make his way to the bank, unhappy, water trailing his bare skin in thin streams.

"I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to save you from what's to come. Don't you see that? You are as wilful here as you have always been." Joseph's frustrated confusion has taken on a layer of sharp irritation.

"You don't even know me," Rook reminds him. He tips backwards until he can see the sky, the scatter of clouds.

Joseph makes a noise which wants to tell him he's wrong, but can't quite deny the truth of it. He leans over him instead, body dripping water, expression curious, questioning.

Rook makes an impatient noise, unwilling to hover on the edge, when they have already crossed this line before. He lifts a hand, catches at wet skin and draws him down.

Joseph's mouth is sharp at first, as if he wants to punish him, for refusing to obey, rejecting his forgiveness, denying Joseph what he needs from him. But it doesn't stay that way, softening, opening, until Joseph's wet skin is pressed against his own, one hand curling at the damp waist of Rook's jeans.

"Will you permit me?" Joseph asks quietly.

"It's a dream," Rook says. 

Which makes Joseph sigh low and deep, hands unbuttoning and unzipping, easing Rook's jeans and underwear down his thighs. They end up in the river somewhere. Rook is annoyed about that, before he remembers that it doesn't matter.

Joseph rises, moves Rook's leg and fits himself between them.

"You are an indulgence," he says quietly. This is the first time Rook has heard him sound guilty, head bent down, tugging at the wet waistband of his own pants, pushing at them. "A weakness sent to test me, to tempt me. You resist my attempts to guide you, to save you, frustrating me at every turn -"

Part of Rook is amused by that, denied the opportunity to baptize him, Joseph will settle for fucking him in the grass.

But his laughter breaks apart before it even starts, at the stuttering, greedy push of Joseph's cock. It opens him, drives the air out of him, real and unreal at the same time. A punch of physicality in a dream world. It leaves him groaning air, while Joseph catches at his waist and murmurs his name, pushes his thighs wider, sinking into him.

"Why must you be so reckless," he says, breathless and sharp. "Why must you lead me into this, fight me so hard to -" Joseph loses his air to a groan, braces himself on his hands and gives up on words. Rook watches him, watches the slow flex of his body, in all its defiled glory. He feels pinned by Joseph's narrow limbs, too hot, a bruised, combative thing that Joseph wants. Until Rook has to reach a hand up, pull Joseph down, bite at his mouth and encourage in shaken, brittle words. Tell Joseph that he wants this.

The pace quickens, steady pushes turning greedy and ragged, and for all that Rook can't really feel the dig of his fingers, or the stretched burn where Joseph is inside him, he feels the slip-slide of wet skin under his fingers instead, the crush of Joseph's mouth, the warmth of the grass.

He needs this.

He needs to feel something.

Rook wakes tangled in the sheets of a bed that isn't his own, in the bedroom of a house torn through with bullet holes, where he only half remembers falling asleep, what feels like hours ago.

He shoves the bedding away and sits up, angry for reasons he can't quite name.

 

~

 

Rook tries to throw himself into his work. Or as close as he can get when his work is trying to stop the advance of a crazy cult across Hope County. But it works for a while. He takes on more radio calls, he goes into peggie occupied territory at night and drags it back, one piece of civilisation at a time. He alternates his companions so no one sees how much he's pushing himself, because his friends are all smarter than people give them credit for. He's too busy to sleep, and when he finally crashes he's too exhausted to dream.

It's only when he gets aggressively pitched off of a roof because he wasn't watching where he was going, that Nick and Grace bring his whole plan to a messy stop.

Because it turns out his friends talk to each other as well.

He ends up sitting on a weapons crate in the bullet riddled ruins of a peggie outpost, while Grace tapes his gashes with a gentleness that he probably doesn't deserve.

"You are one lucky son of a bitch," Nick says tightly. "That was a bad fucking fall. I was not expecting you to get up again after that."

Rook's head hurts, but he feels very much alive.

"That's broken." Grace says, turning Rook's hand carefully. His smallest finger looks bruised and unhappy. She would probably know, she seems the type. It doesn't actually hurt that much, it just feels sort of pinched and numb at the moment.

"Are you sure?" Rook tries to bend it, stiffly but carefully, and Nick winces.

"Yeah, she's sure, and don't fucking do that."

Rook lets them tape it to the next one. It's going to make life awkward for a while. 

"Try not to bend it too much until it's healed," Grace says firmly. "I know you, you'll forget about it in five minutes and try and do something stupid. Make the goddamn effort. Take care of yourself, or someone else will, probably permanently." She's scowling at him, and she looks genuinely pissed. Rook's pretty sure he can hear all the things she's not saying.

"Hey, man, I think you need a break," Nick says, one hand curving round his shoulder. "You've been on the go for what feels like fucking forever. Just give yourself a few days to relax and get your head together."

Rook scowls at his finger. Because getting his head together is what he's been trying to do for a month now. But that's a lot harder than it sounds.

 

~

 

There are only so many times you can dream about a thing before you start to feel like your brain is trying to tell you something, trying to make you understand, clawing until you pay attention. Though Rook hasn't worked out what it is he's supposed to know yet. There's just the frustrating constancy of Joseph Seed's hands, the words he's always leaving against Rook's skin. Where there'll be comfort mixed in with prophetic nonsense, pleas to listen, to understand him, and always the constant slow ebb of strangely insistent desire. If there's any sort of coherent message he's supposed to listen to, or to understand, then he's lost the ability to see it.

It's starting to feel like something Rook wants. Something he's supposed to do. Something that's meant to be.

"What do you want?" Rook asks. Because trying to find out what the dreams mean for him is useless, he's tried, so many times. Maybe Joseph will know, maybe the dream knows better than he does. "Tell me what you want."

"Stop fighting," Joseph tells him, voice dark and soft. He's braced over Rook in the dark, bare thighs spread at his waist, long body a patchwork of tattoos and scars that Rook shouldn't be so familiar with. Joseph raises his hands, lays them against Rook's face and draws himself closer. "Stop fighting me."

Rook catches his waist and squeezes, loses all his air when Joseph pins him down and starts to move.

There'll be no sermons tonight then, no lessons, no religious symbolism, no punishment carved into anyone's skin. Just this _madness_.

It shouldn't be this easy. Rook knows it's not this easy to have sex, it's not this easy to tangle yourself up together, to push yourself inside another person. It's the idealization of sex, all the want and the desire and the indulgence without everything else, all the messy, awkward, uncomfortable parts carved away. It's the shivery-hot memory of it twisted around something new, rather than the reality of it. Which Rook knows would be sharp and visceral and _real_. That him and Joseph would bruise each other, would draw blood and hurt each other. If this were really happening, if they were fucking for real - 

Rook forces himself not to think about it, not to imagine it, because he's afraid he'll make himself want it.

_Like he doesn't want it already._

His dreams have fucking broken him.

Wanting or not wanting doesn't really make a difference now. Rook can still feel it. He can still feel the hot skin at Joseph's waist shifting through his hands. He can feel the shudder of his body, the clenching heat of him, the hungry dig of his fingers. The way his eyes never leave Rook's face, too searching and intent, too calm in their madness to ever be comforting. But Rook has never needed that.

Something inside him is long past refusing this, past feeling guilty for wanting it, because maybe he does, that's the only thing that makes sense after all. Because he can't dream anything else, or anyone else. No one he'd ever been with, or someone who he might have been with if he'd asked. Someone he remembers wanting -

Joseph stills, sudden and unexpected, one long hand lashing out to grasp the weight of Rook's jaw.

"You will think of me, and no one else," Joseph says fiercely, fingers digging in to the point of pain and beyond.

Rook inhales, arousal twisting sharp and sudden inside him. A curl of savage unexpected heat that leaves him helplessly, instinctively gripping Joseph's waist. He pulls at him, knows he shouldn't, knows he can't let himself drown in this, but he does it anyway.

Until Joseph gives, slowly and unexpectedly, and folds into him. His mouth is hot and treacherously familiar.

Rook wakes up before he wants to, hot and restless, aching in a way he can't quite fix.

He lays in the bed of an empty house for a long time. 

 

~

 

Rook spends longer than is probably necessary looking at the statue from the curve of a rock face. Considering the building material, the density, the way it would fall if he took the interior structure down. Spending far less time actually looking at it, at the unsettlingly familiar lines of it. The face that's been haunting him, in a way that's starting to feel like more than just another part of the constant insanity of Hope County.

There's probably something ironically amusing about his strange reluctance to get down there and blow it to hell. Even though it's a symbolic sort of destruction at best. Rook huffs laughter to himself, and isn't that thematically appropriate. Also, he supposes, an actual destruction but he's not going to pretend there isn't a lot more going on in his head than he feels capable of dealing with while planning a mission.

He wonders if blowing up Joseph's statue will help, if it will feel satisfying, or in some way like a betrayal.

And that is not a point he should have ever found himself in. It's proof, if anything, that Rook needs to get back on track, that he needs to remember why he's doing this in the first place. 

Though it doesn't help him to not feel conflicted about the whole thing.

He notes how many Peggies are guarding the thing, how many are close enough to get there if someone sounds the alarm. There are a lot of them. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be clean. But then, that's one of the few things Rook is learning how to be very, very good at.

There are probably better ways to work through your issues, less destructive ones. But this feels more productive.

When the dust settles, or rather when the roughly Joseph-shaped pieces settle, Rook has a new mission. 

Get the book.

He climbs the steel interior, while Faith hisses in his ear, tells him to stop, begs him to stop, tells him how wrong he is. But Rook is more than used to things being wrong, so that's no discouragement at all. It's not an easy climb, and Rook has to put a few of his newfound skills to the test, not least when a fucking helicopter starts shooting at him and dropping Peggies to climb up behind him. But he finds a rocket launcher at the third level, just waiting for him. Which makes everything a lot easier.

He gets all the way to the top.

He finds the book.

In his dreams the book is nothing but blank pages, soft and familiar in Joseph's hand, by Joseph's side. He takes a moment to wonder if he looked at it now, if he opened it and read what was inside, if it would make it real somehow, give the book Joseph holds in his dreams colour and life. Would that give him power somehow?

Rook relaxes his hand, lets the pages soften and part. He lets the book fall open, the same way it fell open the first time he touched it. It almost feels like something he's supposed to read. Something that was waiting for him.

Faith's voice in his ear shakes him out of the moment. Halfway between anger and pleading.

Rook flips the book shut, drags the lighter out of his pocket, and sets it aflame.

He leaves the remains burning, as much of it that will burn anyway. It can be seen for miles around, in a completely different sort of way now. The voices through his radio are happy enough, the ones he's willing to talk to anyway. Though there's something unpleasant in his gut, a nagging weight that he didn't ask for and doesn't know how to get rid of. 

Rook finds an abandoned house, overlooking the river, small and warm and lacking the stench of death that's far too present everywhere lately.

He falls asleep in the back room, to the last few lines of sunlight.

When Rook opens his eyes again Joseph's watching him, folded over on one hand, inked collarbones stark in the dim light.

Rook grumbles out his name, too tired for this, there's too much he's supposed to do, too much he hasn't finished yet, the world won't stop just so Rook's brain can indulge itself with impossible, dangerous fucking fantasies. Joseph is going to be the death of him. But his hands are already reaching, sliding around Joseph's waist, feeling the warmth of it, the low scrape of his belt and jeans. 

He wants to kiss him, and it's a thought which still feels oddly traitorous but he doesn't fucking care. He's already gripping with his fingers, pulling at the narrow weight of him.

Rook can smell the dirt on Joseph's boots, the sweat on his skin, he can feel the warmth of old leather on the back of his hand. He can feel the scratch of the blankets, the ache of the thigh he smashed into a weapon's crate the afternoon before. He can feel every scar and scratch on Joseph's waist. When Joseph leans down the heat comes with him, and his eyes are too sharp behind his glasses, too focused. 

Rook pulls his hands away, shocked beyond all measure. Because he's awake, this is fucking _real_ , Joseph is real, and Rook's guns are ten feet away, past the grip of Joseph Seed's thighs.

He moves instinctively, goes for his knife, and Joseph presses him back flat with a hand, eyes like knives. He puts a warning finger to his lips and Rook knows, he _knows_ that Joseph is never defenceless.

"What are you doing here?" Rook says, quietly because he doesn't know who else is here, who Joseph has brought with him, he doesn't know what his resistance will cost. 

"Why?" Joseph's voice is low, calm, though his eyes are anything but. "Does the honest truth displease you so much?"

Wordlessly Joseph's hands slide forward, to where Rook's are still half curled into fists, he covers them, then pulls them back to rest on his waist. Where the skin is hot and soft, and that grip is too familiar to him. Rook resists, tries to pull them away, Joseph's fingernails dig into his wrists.

"What are you doing?" Rook says tightly.

"So you would know me and then cast me aside?" Joseph says, a softness in the question that seems at odds with the slow curl of anger in his gaze. There's a weight to him, a steady edge of armoured madness that Rook had almost forgotten he had. He'd forgotten how threatening that madness could be. He'd forgotten how much of Joseph was directed and driven by purpose.

Rook shakes his head. Confused for a minute about what he remembers and what he dreamt.

"What? I haven't - we haven't," that's all he manages, because that is not something Joseph should know, not something he has the power to know, no matter what he says about God, or the future. Because it's _impossible_.

"Tell me then," Joseph says, voice quiet but intense. "That you haven't had your mouth on mine, that you haven't pressed me down in your bed, and found your pleasure inside me."

Rook feels like he's been punched. There's no air in the room. There can't be, because it feels like he's suffocating. 

"You shouldn't know that," he says roughly, he realises it's crazy the moment it leaves his mouth. He still hasn't twisted out of Joseph's grip, hasn't uncurled his fingers from Joseph's waist. Even though Joseph's hands have long since relaxed over his own, now they're just holding him gently against Joseph's own skin. It's an intimacy that doesn't belong in the real world. Where everything is bloodier, harder and much less forgiving. Where everything has consequences, and the pain is real. "That wasn't real."

"Wasn't _real_ ," Joseph repeats, tight and unhappy. As if Rook has said something _hurtful_.

But it wasn't, and there's no way Joseph could possibly know unless - unless someone told him.

"She told you?" Rook says suddenly, because he knows, all at once he knows that's the only way Joseph could have known about this. "I told Faith, when she drugged me with the Bliss, and she told you. You don't -" 

"I have known you as well," Joseph admits, soft like it's the first time he's admitted it to anyone. The first time he's acknowledged it out loud.

Rook's protest dies in his throat. 

"I thought it was my own shameful desires," Joseph continues. "My own traitorous _weakness_. But it would not stop, night after night. You chosen for me. You at the end of everything -"

That's something Rook couldn't have expected, something he doesn't have an answer for, an appropriate reaction to. That this impossible thing might have had Joseph slowly going mad as well.

"And I was weak," Joseph says quietly. "I indulged myself with you, because it was not real, because you were a figment of my own mind."

He makes a hard noise, caught somewhere in his throat.

"Until she told me you were dreaming of me as well. That you were seeing what I was seeing."

"It was a dream," Rook says, to Joseph and to himself. Trying to convince the both of them. "It was always a dream."

Joseph dismisses the protest with a strange, dry laugh. It's mocking him, and he knows it. Because it's been _months_.

"You told me things, things I couldn't have known, things you would never have told me. You pulled me somewhere I had no choice but to follow." The last words are said quietly, but firmly.

"The choices we make in dreams don't count," Rook says, brittle.

"The choices we make are all that matter," Joseph says quietly, soft like he remembers, like he was there.

God, he was there. He's been there all along. Joseph watches him realise it, watches him understand it. He straightens where he sits, lifts his hands as if to display the truth to him, expression open. Which is unfair because it's impossible and there is no understanding it. And Rook knows suddenly that Joseph is here alone, he came by himself, no guards, no Heralds, just him. They are alone here together. Because they were always alone together.

"You saw it didn't you," Joseph says finally. "The world made fire and ashes. The world scoured clean."

Rook shuts his eyes, remembers the warmth, the red sky, the silence. Every time, in every dream, the silence that surrounded them. The smoke and the smell of charring meat, the empty, lost nothing to the rest of the world. The way they were lost in it together.

He nods stiffly. Because you can hate something, you can be afraid of something, and still know that it's true.

"Yes," he says roughly. "I remember, I remember that there was nothing, nothing else." 

Joseph exhales, shakily, like he's been holding it forever, like he's just been waiting for someone to join him, to see and to understand. His eyes shut briefly and when they open again they're brighter and harder, something that's too firm and too cold to be madness, but it feels the same somehow. As if Joseph is always standing too close to the edge. Always wavering on the brink, and it would take the slightest push to make him fall completely.

This is the first time Rook has felt like he might fall with him.

"God has put us together. There is purpose in what we have been shown, a path we have to follow," Joseph says, as if he has no doubts now. He leans down, the long, scarred length of him bending into Rook's body. 

Rook can't do this - this will make everything he's been trying to do, everything he's been working towards, a lie. He can't save everyone and do this. But Joseph's hands find his face, callused and rough with scars, and Rook doesn't stop him.

"I can't," Rook says, grating because Joseph has no idea what he's asking. "I fucking can't. We can't just -"

Joseph's mouth is harder in real life, rougher, the warmth of his breath and the prickling drag of hair is a startling grate of difference. But Rook has been kissing him for too long. He's been kissing Joseph for too long, and it feels too familiar, too easy. He's gotten so used to wanting it, to drawing Joseph in like he knows the other man will let him.

Joseph lets him, he lets Rook pull him down, a curve of weight and heat between his hands.

"Come with me," Joseph says against his mouth. "Choose me, and my family, and I will save you, I will make a future for you. I will make a future for us both."

"How can I do that?" Rook manages. Because how does that help anyone, how is that not just a surrender to Eden's Gate, to their madness?

Joseph draws Rook's head up, kisses him again.

"Stay with me." It's not a gentle tug of coercion, it's a demand. "Where you belong."

But Rook doesn't.

He doesn't.

Joseph is already pushing Rook's shirt open and pressing down into him, bed creaking gently beneath them both. And they've never done this, even though Rook remembers doing it more times than he can count. They've never touched each other like this. But Joseph feels so real, hot and angular under his hands, hair a damp tangle between his fingers, and that's somehow devastating in a way he can't let go of. Not when Joseph is pushing into him, pulling at his belt, sighing out a breath when Rook doesn't move to stop him.

Rook doesn't know why he hasn't, why he's still letting Joseph drag them both down. Rook has responsibilities, people who are counting on him, people who are trusting him, and this is impossible, this is a madness that makes no sense.

But he's still sliding his own hands under the waistband of Joseph's pants, touching scars he's only ever seen in dreams, that's he's only ever laid his hands on when he's asleep and Joseph makes a long, soft noise like he knows what the discovery means to him. 

"How?" Rook asks. When he already knows that Joseph will be no help here, will have no answer for him, none that Rook wants to hear.

"Because we were meant to be here, we were meant to see, you were meant to _know_ me."

Rook's jeans are half way down his thighs now, and he catches Joseph's hands, makes him stop. For the first time there's a frown, a stillness, as if Joseph had never considered that Rook might reject him, after everything.

Rook unsnaps the Eden's Gate symbol at Joseph's waist, unclasps his belt, and Joseph makes a noise, as if he's the one who's finally surrendered. Rook pushes his jeans down, exposes him, and then catches his long waist and pulls him back down against him. Joseph's body is thinner in real life, Rook can feel his ribs through the skin, awkward under Rook's grip, he's not used to letting another person lay hands on him like this. But he moves when Rook coaxes him to, presses down when Rook wants it, lets Rook drag him in and kiss him.

Until Joseph's breathing too hot and too fast against his mouth, grip too tight, knee pressing uncomfortably into Rook's thigh, all grinding angles of muscle and bone behind the streaks of pleasure. It's everything it wasn't while Rook was dreaming, and he doesn't want it to stop, he knows there will be no waking this time, whatever mess they make, they will have to live with. He presses his fingers into the bare curve of Joseph's ass, pulls encouragingly until Joseph calls him _wanton_ , and then gives him everything he asks for. He pushes up on an elbow so he can watch him, can watch Rook breathe one shaky breath after another, hands pushed down to touch each other. Close and then too close, and then finally all the way over, while Joseph's hips dig and push and then crash to stillness against his own. They ruin each other, and Rook gasps his way through it, pulling at Joseph's hair and whispering his name like a curse. Because Rook thinks he's agreeing to all of this, to keeping Joseph, with all his rolling, thunderous madness and sharply broken pieces. 

Joseph sinks into him, hands on his face, holding him as they both breathe into each other. 

"I knew you would say yes," he says, breathless and soft.

Rook is sweaty and uncomfortable, Joseph is heavier in real life, hair stuck in thin curls to the side of his face. There's a slick mess between them both. Everything is far, far too real. Rook thinks that he'd gotten lost somewhere along the way, and he's let the wrong side find him, he's let the wrong side save him.

"Come with me," Joseph says simply, voice hot against his face. "Follow me to Eden's Gate."

It's madness, it's a betrayal, and Rook will not be forgiven for it.


End file.
